The Summer Deal

by Jill Shalvis

  “Hi,” she said.

  Terrific. “Hi.”

  She gave him a small smile. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He didn’t answer, although his stomach grumbled again, speaking for him. The woman nodded, like this made perfect sense to her. “I always need to eat before I talk about things too. I’m an emotional eater.” She pulled something from a purse that was the size of the state of California. “You’re not allergic to walnuts, are you?”

  He was about to back away from the crazy lady, but then the scent of something delicious teased him.

  “Carrot cake muffins,” she said.

  He’d have preferred brownies, but he folded like a cheap suitcase and took one.

  In each hand.

  “They’re gluten-, dairy-, and sugar-free.”

  And . . . he froze. Well, shit.

  With a smile, Raina brought one of his hands up to his mouth, and he forced himself to take a bite. But then, suddenly, he had his mouth full of the most amazing carrot cake muffin he’d ever eaten, and was in fact fighting back a moan when she pulled something else from her bag.

  “Dab this at the pulse points on your wrists and rub it in,” she said. “It’s a mix of essential oils meant for calming. Bergamot, ylang ylang, lemon, and a few others.” And because he hadn’t moved, she leaned in and did it for him.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Olive muttered, and came close as well. “Feel free to ignore her. I find a good shot of something in the Jim Beam family usually works just as well as the oils.” She pulled a small flask from her bag.

  Eli felt like he’d walked onto a Mary-Poppins-meets-Twilight-Zone set.

  Raina smiled. “My wife doesn’t like to admit it, thinks it makes her a softie, but she’s a worrier too. It’s why we’re a good fit.” She held out the flask.

  He was just about to give in and take a quick swig when the double doors opened. He stood, thinking it would be Kinsey.

  It wasn’t.

  Brynn came out, looking wan and tired, and he realized she was the one these two women had been waiting for. She’d had the panic attack, the one that had presented like a heart attack.

  Raina and Olive were also on their feet, moving toward her, engulfing her in hugs and kisses, along with relieved laughter and tears.

  Brynn wasn’t laughing or crying. Her eyes were closed and she was hugging her moms back tightly, but Eli couldn’t get a bead on her emotions. It was fascinating, actually. Her quietness. The people in his life—his brother, Max, friends, even Kinsey, all of them, himself included—were not quiet. Not even close. They had sarcasm and bickering down to a fine art, much like a real family. Or so he assumed.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out.

  “What’s the update?” his brother asked in lieu of a greeting.

  “Kidney arrived unviable.”

  Max let out an audible breath. “Shit. Goddamn. Fuck.”

  “Yeah.” In the background, Eli could hear excited barking. Max had probably just come in from surfing. He was probably standing in the kitchen dripping water all over the floor along with their rescue dog, Mini.

  “She all right?” Max asked.

  “What do you think?”

  “That she’s devastated.”

  “While pretending not to be,” Eli agreed.

  “Need me?”

  “I’m okay.” He and Max shared a dad, who’d dumped Eli’s mom to have a baby with the eighteen-year-old babysitter—Max’s mom.

  Eli’s mom, a British college professor who’d never really enjoyed children, including her own, had taken the opportunity to leave her cheating husband and ten-year-old son to go back to England and teach there. And with his dad far more interested in his new trophy wife and baby, Eli had been out in left field.

  But in spite of the ten-year age difference, he and Max had forged a relationship that remained strong to this day. “There’s something else,” he said, eyes on the three women hugging in front of him. “Brynn’s here. At the hospital.”

  “Brynn,” Max repeated, sounding confused. “You don’t mean—”

  “Yeah.”

  “Holy shit. Did Kinsey see her? Did they talk? Maybe—”

  “No, Kinsey didn’t see her.”

  “Did you tell her how hard you crushed on her all those years ago?”

  Eli scrubbed a hand down his face. “I should never have told you that story. And how do you even remember it anyway? That was forever ago.”

  “You’d lost a dare and had to admit your most idiotic crush, which fascinated me because you don’t tend to do idiotic. Plus, I never forget anything. Did you talk to her?”

  “Not really.”

  “Why not?”

  Hell. “She didn’t recognize me.”

  There was a stunned silence from Max, then a very amused laugh. “Sorry, but shit, that’s funny.”

  “Is it though?”

  “Oh, yeah.” Max had just turned twenty-one. He was a beach bum and surfer at heart. He worked two part-time jobs: as an assistant to Eli at the marine life nonprofit, and also cooking at the local bar and grill. He cooked better than he surfed, which was saying something. And he very much enjoyed lording stuff over Eli whenever possible.

  “Bring our girl home,” Max said. “I’ll have food waiting for you guys.” Then, still laughing, his brother hung up.

  Shoving away his phone, Eli went back to watching Brynn. Wondering how to get this to play out the way it needed to. He had a couple of choices. One, keep his mouth shut, and in doing so, let go of a connection that Kinsey desperately needed.

  Or two, bring them together.

  Or back together . . .

  None of them had known during all those years they’d spent together at summer camp that Kinsey and Brynn were related. That hadn’t come to light until Kinsey had taken one of those ancestry tests to try to find a blood relative other than her mother and good-for-very-little con artist of a father. She’d actually gotten lucky. At some point in the past, Brynn had apparently gone looking for relatives as well. She’d uploaded her DNA and a picture. So when Kinsey had come along several years later, she’d been able to follow the bread crumbs. Once she’d found the shocking connection, she’d given Eli a second surprise—she had no intention of telling Brynn they were half sisters.

  Clearly Brynn had never gone back to her own relative hunt, or she’d have found Kinsey. And by then, Kinsey was too sick to go back to camp anyway, so they’d not seen Brynn again.

  Until now, when Brynn was currently being smothered by her moms. She pushed her glasses up farther on her nose as she rolled her eyes, but she wasn’t trying to get away. She was comfortable with the easy affection and the way they were holding on to her like she was the very best part of their entire world. Eli tried to remember his parents holding him like that, but couldn’t. He had no idea what it must be like, but thought it was sweet.

  Brynn had been a tiny thing, undersized like him. She hadn’t had asthma like he’d had, but she’d stuck to herself, especially whenever there’d been sports involved. She didn’t have a single athletic bone in her body. That, combined with her quirkiness, had made her different.

  Eli liked different, always had, but the other kids hadn’t, and he knew camp had been a lonely place for her.

  Raina was sniffing at Brynn. “Baby, why do you smell like chocolate and trans fats and sugar?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  “I do.”

  “I had a candy bar.”

  Raina gasped, horrified, and clapped a hand to her heart, bracelets jingling. “From that death distributor in the hallway?”

  Brynn looked amused. “You mean the vending machine?”

  “Oh my God. Have I taught you nothing?”

  “It fell right into my mouth.”

  “That stuff will kill you!”

  “Raina, not now,” Olive murmured. “Remember? Pick your battles.”

  “You’re right.” Raina cupped Br
ynn’s face lovingly and then kissed each cheek. “You’re really okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’re fibbing, but you will be okay. How can you not be? You’ve got us.”

  Brynn gave a soft snort and hugged them again, her expression clear now: half-amused and half-annoyed affection. There was an energy about her. Part Raina, with the warm and quirky spirit, and part Olive, with the cool, dry wit. But what Eli liked most was that it was clear she genuinely loved her moms, and they loved her back.

  That’s when he realized Brynn was looking at him. Noticing him as a man, while still not recognizing him.

  But he called bullshit on that. Maybe if they’d never become friends back then. Maybe if he hadn’t been the one she’d come to with that long-ago summer deal—she’d wanted her first kiss, the deal being that they never talk about it. Sold. It’d been his first kiss too, although he’d never told her that.

  She was pretending not to remember him. Annoying, but this wasn’t about him. It was about Kinsey, and having her run into Brynn could be the very best thing to ever happen to her.

  Brynn pulled free of her moms, her gaze still on him. “So, um . . . this is Eli, the very kind stranger who gave me the candy bar.”

  Ha. Gotcha. “Not a stranger,” he said.

  She actually stood there and tried to sell him on pretending to not understand. “Excuse me?” she asked.

  Oh, she was good. But he was better. And there was no way in hell he was going to make this easy on her. “You introduced me by name.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Actually, honey, you did,” Raina said helpfully.

  Brynn froze for a beat. Then winced before smoothing out her expression from oh, shit to dammit. “You told me what it was at the vending machine,” she said.

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Fine. So I knew who you were.” She looked at her moms. “He’s from summer camp.”

  “Oh, so he’s that Eli,” Olive said.

  “Mom.”

  That Eli. What did that mean, he wondered.

  “It’s been a long time,” Brynn told him.

  It had been. Fourteen years, in fact. He wasn’t big on coincidences, but if he had been, this one was too big to ignore. After all these years, to see her again, today of all days. It was surely a sign meant for Kinsey. Although he had zero idea how to get Kinsey that sign, except to stall. How long could it take her to get discharged and dressed? A long time, he knew. “So . . . what are you up to these days?” he asked, doing his part.

  “Oh.” She shrugged. “A little of this and that. I just got back into town.”

  “To stay?”

  “I’m hoping.” She eyed her two moms, both of whom looked elated at this news. “I’ll need a teaching job and a place to live, but if that all pans out, then, yeah. To stay.”

  “Honey, you don’t need a place to live,” Raina said. “We’ve still got your room.”

  “What you’ve got is a shrine to a girl who doesn’t exist anymore. And I thought you were going to make it into an office slash workout room.”

  “Well, it’s good we didn’t,” Olive said. “Or your bed would be a yoga mat.”

  Eli laughed. He thought her family was . . . well, adorable. But Brynn didn’t seem amused. Instead, her eyes seemed oddly haunted, and it reached something inside him that he didn’t want it to. But it wasn’t that that made him speak. It was the fact that, if he couldn’t give Kinsey a kidney, he could do this. He could bring the two of them back into each other’s orbits, which might just be the thing to spark some life back into Kinsey or, at the very least, serve as a reminder that she wasn’t as alone as she thought. “I’ve got a room for rent,” he said.

  Everyone stared at him. Raina, looking like she was sorry she’d been so nice. Olive, appraising him with cool eyes.

  And Brynn . . . she bit her lower lip. “Here in Wildstone?”

  Clearly he wasn’t getting enough oxygen to his brain, because manipulating Kinsey into this situation meant certain death. But that didn’t stop him. “Just outside of town, actually. Right off Beach Drive.”

  “You live on the beach?” she asked.

  “Across the street.”

  “What do you mean exactly, a room for rent?” Olive wanted to know. “Are you looking for a roommate . . . with benefits?”

  “Mom,” Brynn said, but then turned back to Eli. “Okay, yeah. What’s the catch?”

  “No catch,” he said. “I’ve got a big, old house that costs a fortune to keep up.” It was the usual spiel when someone wanted to know something personal and he didn’t want to give it. Because the personal was . . . a little too personal. “So I have roommates.”

  Brynn’s eyes held his, like she was searching for the real reason he’d offer such a thing.

  “Honey.” Raina shook her head. “You need to be home, with us. You need some TLC, some good food, and rest.”

  “Mom,” Brynn said softly, taking Raina’s hand and putting it to her own chest. “I love you. I love you both to the moon and back, but what I really need right now is to stand on my own two feet.” She looked at Eli. “But it’s also something I need to figure out how to do on my own. Thanks, though.”

  “Just think about it,” he said.

  She held his gaze for a long beat and then nodded.

  He gave her his contact info, and, having no idea if he’d done the right thing or if he’d just made everything worse, he watched her walk out with her moms. He wanted this more than he should, but if he knew one thing about life, it was that what he wanted rarely mattered.

  Chapter 4

  From nine-year-old Kinsey’s summer camp journal:

  Dear Journal,

  I was told today that I need to write home at least once this week, but I hate home more than I hate you. My mom’s dumb. My mom’s boyfriend is dumb.

  I wish a journal could drive so you could come get me.

  I wish you were a real person.

  Tonight we were given some writing time. I told the counselor I don’t see good at night, which my mom says is a genetic thing, but no one cares. Writing in a journal is dumb. So is the girl who sleeps next to me. She can’t see at night either, and pretends she has two moms. Who’d want two? Anyway, they send her presents, like food! It’s all dumb. Eli thinks I should stop saying everything’s dumb. He’s my best friend, but he’s also a boy, so he’s dumb too. Except he’s nice to me because his family is even awfuler than mine.

  Kinsey

  BRYNN SPENT THE next day attempting to get her life together. This involved applying for jobs—a good decision—and reliving all her recent mistakes—a bad decision. She held a brief pity party for one at McDonald’s, involving a Big Mac, large fries, and an M&Ms McFlurry. But then she forced herself to get on with it.

  Except it turned out that rent in Wildstone was high and jobs were scarce. The only good thing was that the biggest employer in the county happened to be the school district. There were no openings at the moment, so she’d applied to be a substitute teacher. There were only four schools in the district: a high school, a middle school, and two elementary schools. She wanted high school. She’d suffer middle school if she had to, but in her mind, elementary school was out.

  So, of course, that’s who called her, offering a position as a long-term kindergarten sub for a teacher going on maternity leave.

  Pros: a paycheck.

  Cons: good God . . . kindergarteners.

  The paycheck won. For one thing, Brynn had fewer than zero pennies to her name, because along with losing all her self-esteem and self-trust, she’d also let Ashton rob her blind.

  So . . . she was going to make a deal with herself. No rash decisions. Actually, no decisions on the fly at all. She knew some might call this deal something else. Say, avoidance. But she’d thought it through carefully, and it was definitely the best way to avoid future mistakes and screwups. She didn’t need any more of those in her life.

 
Even better, it would protect the people she cared about. Like her moms. No one’s life would be disturbed by any bad decisions or choices she made. No one’s emotions would be at risk. The deal allowed everyone, including herself, to continue walking down their chosen path, without interference or distraction.

  Theoretically, following this plan would be easy. After all, the basis of it was a lack of action. There was nothing difficult in taking no action, in not involving her heartstrings or tugging on anyone else’s. Sure, sometimes she’d have to walk away when she wanted to step closer. Sometimes she’d have to make a lighthearted remark when she wanted to reveal her soul. But all she had to do was hold her heart captive instead of letting it lead her on wild goose chases. No more freeing it into someone else’s hands.

  It was the right thing to do, for all involved.

  Having committed to this deal, having convinced herself this was the only way to go, she came home from her pity party, aka carb-loading.

  Her moms were waiting. They knew the value of working as a team. They’d spent the day trying to follow along with her everywhere she went, constantly shoving food at her, continuously asking how she was doing with twin worried looks on their faces.

  So she’d asked them very nicely to give her a few hours. But those hours were apparently up.

  “Please tell us what happened to you in Long Beach,” Raina said.

  They meant well, and she understood she was their whole life. She also loved them more than anything, but if she didn’t find a way to get out of this house, she was going to die here.

  Which—not for the first time, or even the hundredth—brought her thoughts back to Eli. To what she knew about him, which admittedly wasn’t much. Back then, he’d been funny and easygoing, and not in the least bit shy. Lean to the point of too skinny, as well as asthmatic, he’d still managed to hold his own with the other boys and somehow also seem older than all of them.

  In sharp contrast, Brynn had been a quirky, awkward kid, not funny, not easygoing, and terribly shy. She hadn’t exactly fit in, and the kids hadn’t liked her because of that.